First Stage Investor: Issue No. 19

The Next Stage in Monetary Evolution

By Adam Sharp, Co-Founder, First Stage Investor

As we have been expecting for some time, governments around the world are beginning to fret over what to do about cryptocurrencies. The rise of alternative, independent currencies is shaking up money printers worldwide.

Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin rising strongly against government currencies make their money look bad. Bitcoin’s rise from less than $100 in 2013 to around $8,000 (at the time of publication) has been disconcerting to the monetary status quo.

And if governments aren’t worried, they should be. Because the current system is a slow-motion train wreck. It’s been veering toward disaster for decades now.

In 1971, President Nixon finished off what remained of the gold standard, ending the ability of foreign governments to convert their dollar holdings into gold.

At the time, the U.S. was struggling to pay for rising costs from the Vietnam War. Reckless government spending made it impossible for the U.S. to maintain even the illusion that the dollar was backed by something valuable.

Since the gold standard ended, nations around the world have operated on a purely fiat monetary system. Once the U.S. dropped the gold standard, all other nations were essentially forced to follow suit.

Since then, government debt has skyrocketed all around the world. This chart shows what the U.S. federal debt picture since 1971 looks like.

Money not backed by anything – fiat money – is easier to debase. Central banks need only fire up the printing presses. (In fact, it’s easier than that – they just credit their accounts.) That naturally encourages deficit spending, as there is nothing behind the new money created.

When there was something real and scarce on the line (gold), racking up debt was much harder. The consequences were clearer. Solid gold bars were expended.

Today things are different. Every country in the world, except for a handful of “rogue” nations (Iran, North Korea and Venezuela), has the same central banking system. Money is issued not directly by governments but by a central bank – a private corporation controlled by the big banks.

This fiat scheme is utterly unsustainable.

Gold rose from the government-mandated price of $35 per ounce in 1971, when the gold standard was still in place, to more than $650 over the next decade.

And the buying power of fiat currencies has declined steadily. Today we are told that inflation is a good, desirable thing. It’s simply not true.

The status quo monetary system exists because it benefits the financial industry and those companies that benefit from ever greater government deficit spending (defense contractors, for example).

The only things that truly back fiat currencies today are political capital, liquidity and military force.

Crypto: The Next Stage of Money

Rare metals worked well as money for thousands of years. First it was copper, bronze and iron. Then those became less rare as the mining industry took off, and gold and silver reigned supreme for centuries. They are truly scarce, even today.

The important things that make these metals work well as money are scarcity and fungibility (units are interchangeable – 1 gram of gold is roughly the same as any other, once it’s melted down).

I believe one day governments may eventually return to gold-backed money. China and Russia have been stockpiling the precious metal for years. Many analysts believe they will eventually make a play to return to hard, gold-backed currencies. It would be a monetary coup, and the U.S. and European Union would act strongly to prevent this from happening. But if somehow it does happen, it will likely be done through a blockchain-based system.

Regardless of what happens with government money over the next few decades, the current system is clearly doomed. Debt cannot stack up forever. If there’s no check on government spending, it will spiral out of control, every time. Eventually the interest payments become unsustainable (the U.S. paid out more than $400 billion in interest last year, and much of Southern Europe is struggling under crippling debt loads).

As the 17th-century philosopher Voltaire said, “Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value – zero.”

So that’s where we are today. The bankers’ worldwide fiat experiment is faltering. And government spending is still accelerating. I don’t know when this fiat experiment will fail, of course. It could be five years away or 25.

I will say that the sooner it happens, the better off we’ll all be. We have to rip off the debt Band-Aid at some point and have a financial reset of sorts. It won’t be pretty, but when you have a pile of debt that is essentially impossible to pay off, something has to give. And when the dollar does have its day of reckoning, at least that will open the door to rebuilding an American export economy.

Enter Crypto

During this slow-motion disaster, a breakthrough in monetary technology has emerged: cryptocurrency. It is perfectly positioned to rise as a competing form of money, a new way for people to store the value they save and, eventually, spend it.

It is no coincidence that crypto is soaring in popularity now. Even those who don’t understand the nuances and flaws of our current monetary system can sense that something is wrong.

The thing that makes crypto special is scarcity. The technology used by bitcoin, the blockchain, ensures that units cannot be counterfeited or “printed.” It is brilliantly designed and allows for the creation of scarce digital assets. The possibilities are limitless.

So we now have hundreds of new vehicles that allow people to store and transfer value, all of which are independent of government.

It’s gold for the digital age.

Crypto is truly unlike anything else the world has ever seen. It’s an invention that will go down in history, on par with the printing press.

And because the amazing bitcoin software is open source (free to use), it has spawned countless competitors. Each is developing its own set of rules and technologies.

Other cryptocurrencies are starting from scratch, with completely unique ways of reaching “consensus” (agreeing on who owns what units/coins and preventing counterfeiting). It’s early for these types of altcoins, but I am currently evaluating a number of promising ones.

The innovation we’re seeing today is truly incredible. And it’s not just in coins.

Large, well-funded companies are busy building the infrastructure necessary for crypto to truly go mainstream. Custodial services… advanced exchanges… systems that allow employees to collect a portion of their paychecks in crypto… advanced storage options… secure and easy-to-use hardware and software wallets… index funds… exchange-traded funds… wealth management platforms… they’re all in the works.

Large, established companies are also betting big on crypto. Payment giant Square is adding the ability to buy and sell crypto to its popular Cash App. Robinhood, the commission-free stock exchange with millions of users, is also adding crypto to its offerings. Overstock.com has long accepted cryptocurrency as a form of payment and recently announced that it would raise $200 million-plus in an ICO for its new crypto stock-share-issuance platform.

And of course governments are also exploring ways to make their own “crypto fiat” systems. The technology is simply too attractive not to. But as I’ve mentioned before, unless there’s real scarcity introduced, it won’t be much different from the old money printing system – just more efficient.

This is why I say crypto is the next stage in the evolution of money. All the ingredients necessary for this monetary revolution are in place.

• A legacy fiat system that is dying
• Breakthrough cryptocurrency technologies
• Real scarcity
• Coins that are nearly infinitely divisible and easily transferable
• Infrastructure that is being built out at a very rapid pace

The most important ingredient is only recently in place: widespread and fast-growing popularity. This is the viral organic growth factor I often mention.

People want this. They want a system that’s not rigged against them.

Millions of people are joining the crypto movement every week. Many exchanges, such as Bittrex and Binance, have actually had to shut down new user registration due to incredible demand. Even Coinbase, which just raised $160 million from some of the best venture capitalists in the world, is struggling to keep up with the influx of new users.

These sorts of phenomena don’t happen often. And fortunately for us, it’s still very early, with far less than 1% adoption among consumers and virtually none among professional investors.

So if you’re reading this, congratulations. You’re an early adopter, and you’ve positioned yourself well for this budding revolution.

It will be a bumpy but very exciting ride. ■

Will a Torrent of Money Boost Startups or Spoil Them?

By Andy Gordon, Co-Founder, First Stage Investor

The world of startups is gearing up to meet its latest challenge: a deluge of money. How will this affect the investment landscape? Which hot technologies will emerge? And will it increase greed or facilitate long-term growth?

I have some answers. Here are seven major developments in startup land that every serious investor needs to know about.

No. 1: The Cash Tsunami of 2018

Americans got a new tax plan. And so did U.S. corporations. They’re now able to repatriate some $2 trillion in profits held overseas at a tax rate of 8% to 15.5%. That’s far lower than the previous 35% tax rate. And it’s lower than the new 21% rate.

Take a look at Apple. It was already sitting on a mountain of cash, not including the $252 billion stash it’s holding overseas.

What will Apple and the other large global tech companies do with all this money?

The short answer? Whatever they want. Our government hopes they’ll increase capital expenditures and hiring. But that’s not their only option.

For example, they could buy out companies. With their cash hoard, they could even afford to buy some of the dozens of multibillion-dollar unicorns.

That’s a scenario I’d welcome.

Or perhaps they’ll increase buybacks, something I’m not crazy about. It’s a shortcut and a lazy way for management to boost share value. Not uncoincidentally, it also adds millions to their already generous compensation packages.

Unfortunately, I can’t see that NOT happening. And…

They could also invest in startups.

Apple doesn’t have a venture arm, but last year it did put $1 billion into SoftBank’s mega-venture fund. Rather than back small tech companies with capital and watch them grow, Apple prefers to either invest in a fund (like SoftBank’s) that will do that for it or buy the companies once they’ve grown.

These tech giants all have their own approaches to developing or acquiring new technology. But one thing is certain…

Tech companies will have more money – more than I can remember them ever having – to sink into technology initiatives.

As an early-stage investor, you’ll find the news is mostly good. You’re not in direct competition with the tech giants. Most of your early investing is Series A or before. Most of theirs is Series B and after.

So our deal flow won’t be affected directly.

Indirectly, it should encourage more founders to launch startups. Why?

They know that if they can prove their product-market fit, there will be funding waiting for them down the road.

So I expect deal flow to improve.

Along these same lines, it also takes the edge off the risk of future funding. I always ask myself whether it’s likely that the company will raise successfully in the next round or two.

Now more than ever, if a company is deserving, the answer should be a resounding YES.

There should also be more liquidity events via buyouts than in the recent past.

So startups, along with their early investors, will be rewarded for meeting milestones and executing at a high level.

Clearly, though, there is such a thing as too much money. And recent developments in Asia – our next topic – aren’t helping matters.

No. 2: Here Comes Asia

This is a triple tsunami. Of money… Of technology…

And of tech startups, something I became aware of (again) in January while attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas.

The startup exhibition hall showcased a large contingent from Asia and, most prominently, China.

The tech revolution in robotics, drones, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, etc., is China’s big chance to catch up with the U.S. and other developed countries.

As you’d expect, the Chinese government is taking an aggressive approach. Last year, for example, it pledged to reach parity with the U.S. on AI by 2020 and become the world leader by 2030.

Chinese company Cambricon is pledging to make 1 billion processing units in the next three years. It’s developing chips specifically for deep learning.

Overall, China’s tech stocks are far outperforming traditional manufacturers and exporters… which highlights this overall shift in tech focus.

Taiwan and Japan also had a big presence at the show. Their technologies ran the gamut… not all that different from the variety on display at the American exhibits.

What’s different now is, first, price. Tech hardware from Asia is cheap. Case in point…

A Chinese booth displayed a dozen Fitbit-like watches but at one-tenth the price of a Fitbit. China already owns the drone hardware market. Hardware companies in the U.S. have to not only make outstanding products that excite customers but price them with inexpensive Asia-made products in mind.

Second, Asian money is backing not only local startups but also dozens of startups in the West. In the U.S., we have the PayPal, Google and Facebook mafias. They’ve poured billions of dollars into startups.

In China, you’ve now got the Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and Xiaomi mafias. And their money is increasingly seeking promising startups in the U.S. (and other countries in the West).

I’ve already mentioned Japanese SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which has a trifling $93 billion to spend on startups.

The money spigot from Asia won’t be turned off soon, either. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son says he wants to create a new Vision Fund every two to three years.

By the way, that’s on top of the money pouring into startups from mutual funds, hedge funds, family offices, micro venture capitalists (VCs) and – of course – initial coin offerings, or ICOs.

Valuations dipped last year. It was nice while it lasted. But this year it’s going away. The later rounds will feel the effects of a tech sector drenched in cash. Eventually that will trickle down to the earlier stages where we operate.

But, as early-stage investors, we won’t feel the brunt of inflating valuations right away… at least not this year.

One broad area of technology emerging just as prices escalate? See immediately below…

No. 3: Customization of… EVERYTHING

Well, not quite everything, but it’s headed that way.

We first noticed the customization and personalization phenomenon in marketing. Sales strategies began using social media combined with algorithms to understand their customers better. Genomic medicine – still waiting for its first breakthrough – is nonetheless making dramatic advances in personalized medicine. It’s one of the most promising areas of healthcare technology.

There are many more examples of customization seeping into unexpected areas of our daily life. For example, the software-as-a-service real estate brokerage company whose algorithms automatically pair you with a well-matched real estate agent.

Or the software company that provides hotels with guidance on how to customize the suite you reserved. Or the company that makes your new computer according to your idiosyncratic tastes.

Or how about the company from Israel that personalizes sound? Imagine two people standing 5 feet apart. One is hearing a loud and clear rendering of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.” The other is talking in hushed tones on his cell as if he’s in an almost silent bubble.

Or this inventive way to achieve customization: a smart watch company that sells its watches in modules. If you want environmental monitoring, for instance, it has a module just for that.

These are all real technologies developed by relatively unknown startups.

One day soon, I believe, my world-traveling daughter will be complaining to me after returning from a trip abroad that her hotel room didn’t have the pillows she prefers or the right setting on the thermostat or the TV set on her favorite channel.

That is when customization will be commonplace.

No. 4: Fitness That Fits Your Schedule

At the Consumer Electronics Show, Peloton was showing off a new product: a smart, internet-connected treadmill. Like Peloton’s popular bike, the treadmill has a touch screen for watching classes taught live by instructors in New York City.

Peloton depends on people exercising on their own schedules and in the comfort of their own homes. It and up-and-coming startup BurnAlong target the same demographic: people between the ages of 30 and 50 who have busy schedules. BurnAlong is a local company right here in the Baltimore area, co-founded by my friend (and erstwhile tennis partner) Daniel Freedman.

It streams classes – given by your favorite instructors – into your home and lets you take them with your friends. Daniel says, “Rather than limiting options to the 10 to 15 instructors picked by brands, on BurnAlong there are hundreds of instructors from local gyms and studios.

“And instead of a one-directional experience, you can choose which friends you work out with, and actually see and speak to them.”

A sign of the times: ClassPass – whose core business lets you sign up for classes at specific studios for a flat monthly fee – is now rolling out a livestream version of its service, so customers can stream any ClassPass fitness sessions right into their homes.

Working out is no longer confined to the gym.

No. 5: 3-D Printing Gets Serious

I’ve spent the past five years railing against 3-D printing. It was too limited, too expensive (for most consumers) and restricted to using only resins.

I’m not taking any of it back. But I’ve also stopped saying that stuff because it’s simply not true anymore.

The technology has improved by leaps and bounds. 3-D printing is no longer limited to making cute little items in your home or to industrial engineers making plastic prototypes.

Adam Sharp and I became believers when we began looking into a 3-D printing company that seemed to be ahead of the curve in what it could produce. We ended up recommending the company – WhiteClouds – based on the complex, multicolored products it can build.

A key advance allows for 3-D metal printing. Desktop Metal produces a metal 3-D printer for industrial use.

Late last year, GE introduced its own 3-D printer for metals. It says it’s the world’s biggest, printing parts as large as 1 meter in diameter. Components that go into GE’s Advanced Turboprop aircraft engine were made from 3-D printing.

It took a while, but the hype over 3-D printing has finally caught up to the reality.

No. 6: Fintech

Traditional fintech funding – meaning from VCs – has dropped nearly 10% since 2014. And this year?

The drop should be even more pronounced.

That’s because the technology that is reinventing financial services is centered on the blockchain. And the money raised via ICOs dwarfs VC-sourced funding.

We think it has immense upside. (No secret for those of you who read our emails!)

On the one hand, with the exception of buying and holding bitcoin, mass consumption of blockchain-based fintech services is years away.

On the other hand?

It’s quite possible that the financial sector (along with dozens of other industries) will be disrupted by distributed ledger technologies and anchored by completely new and decentralized digital-asset-backed protocols.

The transformation will be massive and global, or it will amount to nothing. There’s really no in-between. If the technology works and can be scaled, the ramifications can’t be exaggerated. In terms of scale and impact, it will be similar to the internet…

Billions of websites will see a new generation populate the internet: a billion blockchains blooming over the next decade.

While not a perfect parallel/comparison, the dot-com crash is instructive.

The dot-com era is treated as an example of hubris… a period of endless (and naïve) optimism that ended in failure and tears.

But there’s another side to this story… When it crashed, hundreds of companies fell by the wayside. But the technology continued to develop and eventually gave birth to giants in e-commerce (Amazon and Alibaba), internet search (Google), social media (Facebook and Twitter), the cloud (Amazon Web Services and Box) and the sharing economy (Airbnb and Uber).

It’s hard to imagine no dominating companies emerging from the blockchain era.

We may not know all or even most of their names right now, but this era-defining technology will create not one or two or three global giants, but one, two or three dozen.

We’ll say it again: The age of the blockchain is in full swing.

No. 7: Big Data (the Cherry on Top)

AI isn’t taking over the world. Well, not yet. But it’s becoming the irresistible cherry on top of many startups’ business models, as in…

Today, we can do x, y and z. But tomorrow, with the proprietary data we’re now amassing, we’ll be able to do much more and earn 10, 50 or 100 times as much.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard something along those lines. Of course, it’s not as simple as it may sound. Is the data really unique? How hard was it to collect? Do you know what you’re going to do with it?

And, by the way, how many data scientists do you have on staff?

AI is rapidly coming of age, driven by increases in computational power and the explosion in data (though many times not easily accessible data). But it’s out there… oh boy, is it out there!

Roughly 90% of all the data in existence today was created in the past two years.

Meanwhile, the price of storing information has plummeted – a gigabyte of storage cost $300,000 in 1981, compared with around $0.10 today.

Cheaper data, a giant leap in the availability of that data and the plummeting cost of storage are making AI a realistic part of a startup’s business blueprint.

What we’re now seeing is just the tip of the iceberg. AI programs will get only more complex as computing power increases and more data becomes available.

I can tell you this: It’s an increasingly important part of our startup vetting.

As a matter of fact, the last three companies we’ve added to our First Stage Investor portfolio (Sickweather, 20/20 GeneSystems and Arbit) generate their own proprietary data. No coincidence.

Companies – like these three – that can amass extremely proprietary data sets and have capable data scientists can effectively argue that their upsides are higher than those of most startups.

Big data has massive potential in all kinds of uses – from healthcare to industry to advertising – in the years ahead.

By the way, if you’re curious, all three First Stage Investor holdings have hired top-notch data scientists.

Looking Forward

In 2017, cryptocurrencies hit record highs. Some 235 ICOs took place. And more than $3.7 billion was raised in ICOs.

In 2018, expect those numbers to go up. And expect us to continue to track the major cryptos and recommend those with the most promising long-term return profiles.

2018 promises to be an eventful year. We’ll keep you up to speed on the latest developments in the months ahead, alerting you when interesting opportunities arise. ■

Portfolio Update: DSTLD

Editor’s Note: For those of you who are new to First Stage Investor, we first recommended online retailer DSTLD in August 2016. Its first product was what we call “three-in-one” jeans: fashion, quality and affordability… all rolled into one extraordinary pair of jeans.

We love DSTLD so much, we did something we’d never done before… we doubled down on a startup recommendation.

We’ve had plenty of opportunities to do this. But they just weren’t compelling enough.

For us to double down on an investment, it has to be pretty special.

This one has more than met our high standards. We believe DSTLD is a very special startup.

With a $22 million valuation when we first recommended it, DSTLD was a good investment.

Now that it has a $30 million valuation, we think it’s an even better one.

This is a fantastic opportunity for those who missed out on DSTLD’s first raise… and a fantastic opportunity for those who are new to First Stage Investor, as you get a chance to invest in one of our original portfolio holdings.

But if you did invest the first time around, we strongly suggest you do so again. As we said, its current raise is an even better deal.

To get started, check out our full evaluation of DSTLD in the September 2017 issue of First Stage Investor.

For this month’s issue, we wanted to provide you with some insights from DSTLD’s co-CEOs, Mark Lynn and Corey Epstein.

Our research team was able to catch up with them at a recent conference…

Here are some of the biggest takeaways from their meeting.

Who does DSTLD consider to be competitors that could take away part of its market share as they grow?

H&M and Zara. Both are direct-to-consumer brands, but they operate in both low-quality and premium products.

DSTLD believes it can compete with them on premium denim and “essential luxury” items due to their affordability and the development of a niche brand around that offering.

What new projects or initiatives is DSTLD launching in 2018?

DSTLD has recently launched a store in California.The store does NOT hold saleable inventory. It does hold its entire product line (in all available sizes), but the space is designed for customers to try on the clothing only.

Customers can purchase products through a sales rep at the store and have them delivered to their homes. Mark and Corey want their locations to be less of a store – in the traditional sense – and more of an experience for the customer.

Think of boutique stores that serve wine, have a relaxing or even fun environment, and offer service that is very customer-focused.

This model is more cost effective than holding inventory at the store.

First, it allows them to operate smaller (thus cheaper) spaces where larger retailers can’t be.

Second, their centralized organization eliminates inventory costs – including shipping and storage costs – for a store that may never see sales.

It’s also easier for them to make design or sizing changes, if needed, to products by keeping all inventory at a single center instead of dispersed throughout national stores.

To take advantage of the retail apocalypse, Mark and Corey are considering several cities for potential store launches.

They explained that the retail apocalypse
facing legacy companies has depressed retail real estate prices.

So they are exploiting the downfall of traditional retailers to expand their physical footprint.

They are looking at Miami and New York for their next locations.

How is DSTLD using real-time data analytics to launch and expand inventory, grow sales, or expand marketing efforts?

Mark and Corey have so much data that they know will be useful, but they’ve been prioritizing other things like website conversion rate, product page conversion rates and product returns.

Even still, the data is all there. So this is a good thing for potential investors.

This is real-time data so they can adjust to
customer demands almost instantly rather than on a quarterly basis (which they say is standard for most retailers).

What challenge did DSTLD face in 2017, or in the past in general, and how does it plan to overcome this moving forward?

Its biggest challenge was expanding its inventory of denim.

DSTLD’s suppliers have been strict on the amount it can order, so Mark and Corey feel they could grow much faster if not for this limitation.

However, they’ve been in talks for the past year with larger suppliers. It looks like things should come to fruition this year.

In their words, a multibillion-dollar supplier will “make sure they never run out of inventory.”

They’re being noticed by big fish.

How would DSTLD define its competitive advantage? What stops a newcomer from imitating its core business model?

Mark and Corey believe DSTLD is a “three-for-one” business. It is essentially a technology, logistics and marketing business.

Their expertise lies in digital marketing, which they believe is something most traditional retailers still fumble with. But they also believe their direct-to-consumer model is the most ideal of existing models. This is not unique to them, as this has existed for decades.

However, combined with their proprietary technology, they believe they can grow a competitive business that will inevitably eat into the market share of companies like Zara and H&M.

The technology part is the hurdle for newcomers. The digital marketing is the stumbling block for older, established companies.

They told us that roughly 25% to 40% of each month’s sales are from Facebook marketing. That’s been super successful for them.

But as ad costs rise on Facebook, they plan to transition more into SEO marketing. (SEO is search engine optimization, or the process of pushing traffic to a particular website by establishing a high-ranking placement in the search results page of Google or other search engines.)

Does DSTLD think that large direct-to-consumer competitors see it as a threat?

If so, how does it anticipate them combating its business: competitively or through a direct buyout of the company?

Mark and Corey believe the mid-tier direct-to-consumer retailers have noticed DSTLD but have not signaled any interest yet in combating them.

They said that some companies have “poked around” at the idea of buying DSTLD, but there’s nothing concrete in the works or in discussion.

That said, they’re always waiting for someone to do something “stupid.” In other words, if someone wants to buy them at 10 times sales, they’ll probably take the offer.

But right now they’re focused on growing the business to its maximum potential in the
direct-to-consumer market, not waiting for a buyout. ■